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Trust me—you really don’t know what you’re missing.

Posted on this website as of 12-9-2000 is proof that dimples and chads can be identified by simple microscopic examination, as I describe below.

See the article by the webmaster Peter Sheerin entitled: “My Microscopic Examination of Chads and Dimples”. There you will see dramatic pictures taken with a microscope connected to a computer. He also shows how easily the chads can be dislodged from a stack of blank ballot cards when they are pressed together by manual manipulation and/or repeated machine processing. This is why counting and counting and recounting can distort the truth.
—Bill Wattenburg 12-10-2000

The Florida “Dimpled” Ballots: Easy Experiments to Find the Truth

by Dr. Bill Wattenburg

November 29, 2000

To whom it may concern in the public and press:
Easy experiments can determine the truth about the origin of the “dimpled” ballots and the functioning of the Votamatic machines that could determine the presidency of the United States. The courts and the public should know and see the truth.

There are a number of simple experiments that can be done quickly to show the origin of the “dimples and small holes” in the few thousand Florida ballots counted. These “dimple” ballots should be challenged and examined the same way that the absentee ballots and servicemen ballots are being challenged.

Here are the experiments that can be done quickly. They can demonstrate:

  1. the object(s) that produced the dimples and small holes that were counted as votes, and
  2. whether or not the voting machines will plug up to the point that a voting chad cannot be dislodged very easily by the voting stylus.

Experiment 1: Microscopic Examination of the “Dimple and Chad Ballots”

Simple microscopic analysis can be done to determine if “foreign objects” produced the “dimples” and small holes in ballots already counted or to be counted. Even a low-power microscope will show the “footprint” of the device that caused the dimple or small hole. Paper fibers are displaced and/or broken in different patterns depending on the device used to contact the surface. Such examination is routine in crime laboratories which analyze hair and carpet fibers at crime scenes, puncture holes in fabrics, etc. Any dimples or small holes that were produced by some object other than the voter stylus, such as a fingernail or sharp object, can be seen.

Hanging Chads Can Cause Dimples?

A KGO Radio listener, Scott Murray, first brought this possibility to my attention. Loose chads on adjoining ballots could be the cause of “dimples” being impressed into blank ballots that were stacked with the punched ballots—like a piece of sand stuck between the pages of a book. For example, a loose chad on a ballot punched for, say, Bush could cause a dimple to be impressed into a blank ballot stacked next to the punched ballot in a stack of ballot cards when this stack of ballots is pressed together before machine reading This can be determined by simple microscopic examination of the “dimpled” ballots. The chads punched out or the “footprint” of a dimple created by this means will be quite different than a sharply defined dimple produced by the hard voter stylus.

Someone must ask for permission to have the “dimple” ballots examined immediately by a law enforcement or forensic agency that can do a low-power microscopic analysis that will likely show the “footprint” of any device used to produce the dimple area. This easily can be done on a hundred ballots an hour. There are only a few thousand so far.

Experiment 2: Demonstrate that the Voting Machines Cannot Plug Up.

Go to the election officials in any county that uses the Votomatic machines and ask them to loan you three of the Votomatic machines. Ask them to show you the routine maintenance procedures for cleaning and setting up the machines before an election.

Ask them to show you where punched-out chad is held under any ballot position on the machine.

Suppose that the maximum number of voters that can punch ballots in 12 hours is N. N is the maximum amount of chad that would be in any hole position. Next, fill a voting position on the machine with two or three times this much chad, i.e., 2N or 3N.

You will find that there is no difficulty in punching out a new chad in this position. You can prove this by using two or more machines when only one machine has a position that is full of chad. No one can tell which one is “full” of chad. The Chad is soft and not dense. A new chad can always be pushed into the bulk that is there by the dense stylus. You can have 2N up to 5N amount of punched out chad below a ballot position with no noticeable extra force required to punch out the next chad in this position.

You could use three or four court volunteers to demonstrate this with, say, three voting machines in court. Only one of the machines has 2N or 3N of chad beneath a voting position. You don’t tell them which machine or which voting position has the “plugged chad”. Let them vote several ballots in several positions on each machine. Each person does it several times.

The punched out ballots will show the truth. The voters will not be able to tell you which machine had “plugged chad”. Their properly punched ballots will show you they had no trouble voting properly.

My qualifications and background:

I am a former faculty member and scientist from the University of California. I was an engineer and consultant to IBM during the development of punched card machines.

If you will look at a website www.DrBill.org you will see that I have been asked by the government to solve many problems and technical mysteries. I generally do the actual experiments to solve a problem or find out the truth. I was a member of this nation’s nuclear weapons design team at the U.C Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. I am still a consultant to the laboratory.

On www.DrBill.org you will see, for example (under background report, magnetic credit cards), that I showed the world and the press in 1973 that the first magnetic stripe credit cards that were about to be released to the world by the banks (and the Bay area BART system) could be easily counterfeited by any housewife using only equipment found in the kitchen. (See the story in Business Week, August 11, 1973, page 120). It took the banks and IBM several years to design a better magnetic stripe system that could not be easily counterfeited.

The experiments required to determine the truth about the Florida ballots are no more difficult.

Attached below are some of the recent projects and experiments that I have done to solve major technical problems plus a brief resume:


Bill Wattenburg’s Simple Solutions to Expensive Problems

The items below reference articles and papers that have appeared in major scientific journals about methods and technology that Dr. Bill Wattenburg has devised to quickly and cheaply solve what others have shown in the past to be difficult, expensive problems. If you think that whatever his latest scheme is sounds like it couldn’t possibly work, then please read the original stories below as evidence that he has solved similarly difficult problems in the past, and just might be able to help with whatever the latest sticky wicket is.

Urgent Efforts to Prevent Thefts of Trucks for Use as Bombs
Dr. Wattenburg came up with a new device that is designed to allow pursuing police officers to stop a fleeing tractor trailer or tanker truck in its tracks—with a bumper-to-bumper tap from behind. The system, being tested by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, activates the truck’s air brakes when a horizontal metal bar running across the rear end of the vehicle is nudged by a pursuing vehicle.
How to Feed Refugees Quickly, Cheaply, and Safely, Even in War-Torn Areas
October 2001 & March 1993
“Dropping food packages to refugees without using parachutes”, Science, 2 April 1993, page 27.
San Francisco Chronicle, 23 March 1993, front page.
Also used in the war against the Taliban starting October 2001, as reported in the SF Chronicle and on the ABC News web sites.
Simple, cheap solution to sanitation problems at refugee camps
April 1999
How to provide bathroom facilities for tens or hundreds of thousands of refugees crammed into a small area, using 5-gallon buckets.
“Plastic Buckets for Refugee Sanitation” Science, v 284, p 409, 16 April 1999.
Terrorist Vehicle Barrier Successfully Tested by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
October 1998
The San Jose Mercury News, 8 October 1998, front page. SF Chronicle article, LLNL press release, Las Vegas Review
This invention recently sailed through tests by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; destroying the vehicles that were launched into it. It is an outgrowth of his much earlier invention of a traffic barrier for the Golden Gate Bridge, and also appeared on the front page of the San Jose Mercury News on 8 October 1998.
LLNL’s Mine Clearing Robot
1995 & 1997
LLNL engineers and technicians collaborated with Wattenburg to produce a new mechanical minesweeper called Called STAR (Spiral Track Autonomous Robot) that was nominated for an award from Discover Magazine, which both LLNL and the DOE were proud enough to report.
“Robot Mine Detector” Science, v270, p 1929, 22 December 1995.
“The Spiral Tube Robot” Discover Magazine, July 1997, p 56, finalist, Inventions of the Year Award
Clearing land mines by Helicopter
San Francisco Chronicle, 8 March 1991, front page.
Scientists Present New Ways to Snuff Kuwait Oil Fires
Wall Street Journal Europe, 5–6 April 1991, page 8.
Bill’s Flatcar Bridge Spans I-5
April, 1995
A good article on how Wattenburg used railroad flatcars to build a modular highway bridge that can be assembled in just a few days. (Complete with pictures.)
“A Temporary Freeway Bridge”, Science, v268, pp. 261–262, 279–281, 14 April 1995; and Science, v 264, p 27, 1 April 1994.
Dust ‘Tag’ Proposed for Borders
December 1994
How to use harmless, fluorescent dust sprinkled along our borders along with airborne sensors to help identify people crossing our borders illegally.
“Fluorescent Barriers to Infiltration”, Science, v 265, pp. 1184–1185, 26 August 1994
Science, v 266, p. 1461, 2 December 1994 (letter).
Stopping the Waste of Blood from Blood Banks
1965
How Wattenburg used remote data terminals hooked up to timesharing mainframes over telephone lines to greatly reduce the amount of donated blood that had to be thrown out because it wasn’t at the hospital where it was needed.
Journal of the American Medical Association November 8, 1965, v194 n6, pp583–586.

Dr. Bill Wattenburg’s Résumé

1980–Present

1965–1980

1961–1967

Education

Inventions and Patents

Signaling and Communication System
Patent No. 3,460,121
Issued August 5, 1969
This is the original patent for home alarm systems that communicate over house wiring, and is basically the same technology used in the X-10 system today.
Tennis stroke training device
U.S. Patent No. 3,693,973
Issued September 26, 1972
Record card comparing and print enabling mechanism
U.S. Patent No. 3,745,919
Issued July 17, 1973
Anti-snag plowing system
U.S. Patent No. 5,183,119
Issued February 2, 1993
Downhole drilling subassembly and method for same
U.S. Patent No. 5,445,230
Issued August 29, 1995
Downhole drilling subassembly and method for same
U.S. Patent No. 5,673,765
Issued October 7, 1997

References

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